The Road to War
by Wardown
Summary: This is third in the series that begins with And What Will Ye Leave to Your Own Sister Dear. Sweet Brother. It is set about eight years after The Queen's Portrait


"I don't want to marry Robyn Manderly, Mother. He looks like a horse."

"What you want Catelyn, bears no relation to what you will do." The Queen is braiding her daughter's hair on her thirteenth name-day. They are both due to watch her guards ride out to fight their latest campaign; against the Pirate Queen, Yara Greyjoy, who has had the nerve to proclaim herself Queen in the North, and the Dragon Queen's avenger. Sansa has little doubt about the outcome. However formidable the Ironborn may be at sea, they are no match for her army on land, even with the backing of the Mormonts of Bear Island, and other rebels in the West. "Robyn Manderly's father is the richest lord in the North. His elder brother will one day be Lord of White Harbour. You will marry him when you turn fifteen, and you will bear a Stark heir. That is all there is to be said on the matter. And, don't sulk. It is unbecoming in a royal princess. Come." She takes her daughter's hand, and leads her out of her chambers, into the corridor. Her husband and Prince Consort, Ser Raymond Hightower, is waiting for her. They lead entirely separate lives now, but appear together on State occasions. He is wearing a suit of polished steel plate, and will lead the army. She wears the scarlet and black undress uniform, and fur hat, of a Colonel of the Royal Horseguards, a slim sword with a jewelled hilt strapped to her waist. Guards salute them as they walk through the Palace, and descend to the atrium. A selection of lords and courtiers are awaiting them, and applaud politely as they appear. The Queen acknowledges the applause with a slight nod. They exit the Palace to review the soldiers in the courtyard. Her husband's squire approaches with the man's war horse, and he rides to the head of his men. The Queen addresses her men.

"I see no subjects here, but only comrades in arms. You are marching to victory. The whore of Pyke thinks to trample our nation's freedom into the mud. We will show her that the North is not be trifled with. This is a woman so dead to decency that she lies with other women, as frequently as she does with men. As did the abomination born of incest who she claims to avenge. You will destroy her, and we shall carry the war to the Iron Islands. We shall spike her head and the heads of her bastards on the walls of her own have all been told "War to the castles, peace to the villages". That is how you have waged war, but not how the Ironborn and our enemies wage it. So now, I say "War to everything that moves, war to everything that can burn. Set Bear Island and the Stony Shore ablaze. You will make a horror that the poets will shudder to sing of a hundred years from now!" Cheers erupt from the assembled troops. Sansa draws her own sword, and raises it high "Though I have body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a King! Are you with me?" The soldiers roar their approval, and begin to ride out of the main gate. As the shadows lengthen, and it grows colder, servants bring her and her daughter long wolf-pelt fur coats, which they don. She watches as the last of the Royal Guard ride out, more than a thousand men. They will join other detachments of her army, mostly hired sellswords, together with the retinues of loyal lords. Over twenty thousand men will converge on the Stony Shore and destroy the invaders.

They return to the Palace, and make their way to the Great Hall, where a ball is to be held in Princess Catelyn's honour. As they enter the Hall, she remembers the banquets held there when she was a girl. Primitive affairs, ill lit, with even her parents dining off bronze and pewter vessels. It is now transformed, brilliantly illuminated with oil lamps in silver gilt sconces. They will dine off porcelain and crystal, and eat with gold and silver cutlery, inlaid with mother of pearl. In the centre of the Hall, a great ice sculpture of the Palace takes the place of honour, attracting the admiration of the assorted guests. Once upon a time, it was noteworthy if a bard turned up to perform for a couple of weeks. Now, Winterfell is a centre of culture and learning that surpasses even Highgarden or Oldtown. _I have brought civilisation to the North_. A servant approaches, in the black and silver livery of the Starks, bearing glasses of sparkling white wine on a tray. Catelyn looks enquiringly at he mother. "One glass, sweetling, that is your limit. You may have another with dinner. And sip, don't swallow. " The girl takes the glass, and then her mother says "Now circulate, and be charming. You are meeting the most important of your future subjects. Lady Poole," she calls out to her old friend, now her Lady in Waiting. Jeyne Poole hurries over to her. "Accompany her Highness. See that she does not disgrace herself. The last thing I want is some young suitor leading her off into a cupboard and putting a bastard in her belly." She turns to the knot of sycophants who have already clustered around her. Both the men and women are dressed in quasi-military uniforms. She has replaced her fur hat with a white gold tiara, studded with diamonds. The latest Lord Cerwyn accosts her, proposing the hand of his youngest son for her daughter. "An excellent choice my lord, were it not for the fact that he is a catamite. I fear he would be unable to produce an heir." The man goes purple with embarrassment, and as chance would have it, she meets the young man's latest lover, an Umber. She leans over confidentially and asks him "Tell me Ser, merely in order to satisfy my womanly curiosity. Is the young son of Lord Cerwyn as beautiful unclothed, as when he appears at Court, fully clad?" She smiles as the man chokes on his wine, and moves on. "My lord, we have quite forgot the fart" she calls merrily to Robett Glover, remembering the occasion he embarrassed himself, when prostrating himself before her. And so she continues to circulate, spreading good cheer wherever she goes. Minstrels in the gallery play a succession of martial airs, in keeping with the occasion, as costly perfumes are wafted through the air. Eventually, the company sits for dinner.

Jeyne Poole is seated on the top table, next to Princess Catelyn, a high honour for a woman of minor nobility. She stares sadly at the Queen, her childhood friend. Probably the only friend that Sansa ever had. She wonders what happened to turn that kind, naïve, innocent girl into a tyrant who is despised across two continents. _They said the Dragon Queen was mad, but Sansa lives in a world of her own, quite oblivious to the sufferings of her people. Or is she?_ After all, she has established a formidable apparatus of repression. It led to the final break between the Queen and her sister, when the latter refused to head up her Inquisition. As far as she is aware, Arya now lives up at Castle Black, with Jon Snow. _What an unhappy family. They never should have gone South. The Lord and Lady and Robb were murdered, and my friend was broken inside. And what of the coming war?_ The gaiety of tonight's celebration is very strained, as far as she can tell. Oh, the Queen's armies are formidable, and quite sufficient to hold down a hostile population. But can they beat a foreign invasion as well? Whatever happens, she will try to keep Catelyn safe.

Notes:

1\. I wanted to give Winterfell something of the flavour of St. Petersburg in 1914.

2\. "We have quite forgot the fart" was a greeting given by Elizabeth I to Lord Oxford. The comment about being "more beautiful unclad" is sadly not mine, but comes from Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay.


End file.
